


Someone Will Remember Us, I Say

by Head_Of_Ianus



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: 007 Fest 2020, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Love Poems, M/M, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Poetry, collection of poems, mentions of magic, team00
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25054063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Head_Of_Ianus/pseuds/Head_Of_Ianus
Summary: Here is how the story goes: Initially, all lovers once were one being, but they were split into two by Iupiter in a fit of fearful rage. Ever since then, lovers have wandered the earth in search of their missing half, longing and yearning eternally for their soulmate, and Darling, so do I.A collection of love poems bridging centuries and epochs to tell of all the tragedies and joys that Q and James might have lived through in a different time and place. Specific content warnings are gonna be added to the notes of every chapter.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 36
Kudos: 15





	1. The Last Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Essentially, I am dragging all of you through my preparation for in-depth lyrical analysis by writing poems according to epochal guidelines and topics. But all of these were initially used in German poetry, and I just decided that they needed to work for English poems as well. Cheers.
> 
> We are starting off with a baroque sonnet. :)

The Last Reunion

The howl of hungry hounds follows him tirelessly  
As night now stalks and storms across the lonely lands  
Before his eyes like diamonds that make no amends  
And the death of time is trailing his steps mercilessly

Godless, pure beauty lives in his delicate hands  
and coral lips like his may rule, and they may reign  
Daisies that don‘t decay, he holds youth on a chain  
That sinister scholar now owns these lonely lands

At sunrise, we met on a meadow on your land  
At sunrise, you gave me the youth I gravely need  
At sunrise, I gave you pain only you understand

The hounds don‘t know why it's me with whom you bleed  
The hounds don‘t know that in love you took my hand  
May nature, my dear, birth us anew as a singular weed.

Centuries later, the skeletons of two men were found, covered by weeds, flowers, and the roots of a nearby oak binding them to the earth.  
Their hands tightly interlaced with each other, heads turned towards each other. There's no need to disturb a peaceful grave.


	2. Lost Love Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another one, skipping over Enlightenment (cause that's a difficult epoch to write poems for) and going into Sturm und Drang. This was upsetting to write, actually :)
> 
> I'm still very upset about all the love letters written between same-sex lovers that were burned by their relatives after their deaths... here's to that.
> 
> CW: Character Death, Homophobia

Oh, how I fear  
the hate of men  
that kills, my dear,  
love once again.

You reign the field  
with eyes of ice,  
before you yield  
both men and mice.

But love, the sun  
has kissed your face,  
and nature spun  
your limbs with grace.

Now flowers bloom  
and birds all croon,  
when through the gloom  
you hum your tune.

Few love their wife  
as you love me,  
I‘d give my life  
for yours with glee.

Oh, I love you  
like flowers love  
the morning‘s woo,  
hope loves the dove  
as I love you.

The birds were still  
the day that they  
declared us ill,  
and killed my ray  
and took my will.

Oh, how I hate  
the kind of men  
that took my mate  
from me again.

Flames licked up black ink on brittle parchment, eating away at another loving „Dear James“ and a scribbled „Q,“ and in front of the fireplace sat a young man with a shock of dark curly hair and stared blankly at the last remains of his lover being destroyed by brutal red and orange. Turning to ashes, soon to be thrown out and forgotten.

"Trust me, it‘s best if no one ever knows. It would only hurt your reputation“,

A woman with greying hair and a familiar face tells him this as she tosses more of their love letters into the fire.  
He stays silent and looks away with a numb, hollow chest. 

His heart screams "Oh, how I fear -" ...


	3. Symposium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving on to Classicism: All about harmony, clarity, restraint, and complicated speech patterns (that I am not partial to). Think of blues and whites and beiges and light yellows and maybe the ocean :)
> 
> CW: None that I can think of :)

Because he was afraid of them and of us  
Darling, Iupiter split all soulmates in two  
And scattered the longing to make a fuss  
and to ruin all love both honest and true  
But these are actions at which Venus may cuss  
She vowed to help all her children far and few  
So dear, trust that we will set the sky alight  
So dear, trust that even gods will fear our might.

Across the shallow valley and the foggy hills  
Between the reaching trees, I walk in search  
As Nymphs whisper in my ear of endless thrills  
I remember you as my closest thing to church  
Without you, dear, my heart ruthlessly kills  
my empathy and I merely exist as a violent lurch  
So dear, trust that we will set the sky alight,  
So dear, trust that even gods will fear our might.

Nestled somewhere between Achilles and Patroclus, Alexander and Hephaestion, all the lovers betrayed by their gods, there is a legend whispered about two lovers and soulmates taking heaven and hell apart. Ruthless intelligence and reckless ingenuity bundled together so close they almost returned to being one, a love to be frightened of. Their story might have been forgotten, but truly, they had never intended to be remembered.


	4. Beneath the moon's most gentle light...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There goes romanticism :) I dunno, I still want some historical 00q but the thought of actually writing it makes my skin crawl because it's gonna be stressful ugh
> 
> Anyway, here we go :)

Beneath the moon‘s most gentle light  
we met upon our ruin‘s spire.  
The larks sang brightly every night,  
their song was ours to admire.

My endless soul held softly  
the story of our past,  
Oh, your lips smiled calmly  
upon our future vast.

And soon the child in town  
is old, soon both their parents  
are gone – still, you will frown  
about time‘s fleeting presence.

Beneath the moon‘s most gentle light  
we met upon our ruin‘s spire;  
Now that we‘re just a ghastly sight  
Our ruin‘s lands we shall admire.

Above a remote village in the sparse plains of Scotlands towers the decayed ruin of a former nobleman‘s castle, and down in the village, a tale is told of two pale and translucent shadows roaming the crumbling floors and halls with great grace. They do not welcome visitors, but they are not vengeful either, the residents know and keep away from the collapsing walls overgrown with ivy, but some nights, they can spot the lovers on top of their spire, observing.


	5. Two Clouds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really struggled with this one, but it's majorly inspired by the idea of "Zwei Segel" (Two sails) from Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, a very beautiful poem. It's quite typical for the epoch of symbolism, but my poem here is closer to (poetic) realism :) Honestly,, I struggled with this one... anyway, it's quite okay now!

Carried by an eternal gust,  
Two clouds last in the sky.  
Just nebulous white on stardust  
The clouds change as they fly.

Above pitter-patter on cement  
And rich fields set ablaze  
Their Mother, Nature, crudely bent  
The clouds to change their ways.

Two clouds in tandem arc and bow  
Commanding the space they occupy.  
The sky has bound them by a vow,  
They cannot leave; they unify.

* * *

Bond and Q stay with each other, even as they change. And they change quite a lot, over the years.

Even though he complains, Q would gladly choose damaged equipment over a potentially damaged agent. Bond returns with bruises and broken bones and barely alive often enough, and it doesn‘t necessarily damage him, but it always changes him. Sometimes a mission gone wrong shifts his beliefs and opinions, other times Bond comes back and can‘t even meet Q‘s eyes anymore, horrified with himself or the world. Q stays by his side until he dares to go back out there, anyway.

The changes happen to Q in a slower, more subtle manner, but Bond recognizes them as they accrue across the years. At first, it‘s just the hair around his temples greying and thinning out, but as the agents come and go and die, he watches a bitterness settle into the corners of Q‘s mouth, and a sad numbness sneaks into the brilliant glint of his eyes. Sometimes, Bond just does his best to press Q into his chest until he eventually lets some of the sadness he harbours go. He knows there's not a lot else he can do about it, but Bond stays by Q's side until he dares to go back out there as well.

As life continues to trash and throw them around, they quietly learn to find comfort in each other.


	6. The City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, so this entire chapter sounds like massive London-bashing, sorry mates,,, London is actually quite fun, the people are usually very polite, you know the drill.
> 
> This one is for naturalism :)
> 
> CW: Mentioned/Implied Mental Health Issues

On a Monday  
I live in a square next to squares  
in a giant square in a city of squares  
and on the corridor linking the squares  
a rotting rat has made its nest  
streets here are leaden and emptily full  
and no one bothers to meet my eye  
no need for me, no need for you  
we are but a replaceable crowd  
And in the office  
all I meet are beings with eyes  
grey and blunt and dead  
the city kills all humanity

And in the field  
You live in open spaces next to oceans  
on islands next to palm trees  
and I‘ve been choking on jealousy  
But honestly,  
isn‘t the field just an escape?  
a dream?  
as you are floating in luxury  
the people creating your dream  
also live in a square  
And eventually, you‘ll return home  
as always, back to deadening monotony  
you cannot escape the squares and the streets  
let me promise you:  
the city kills all humanity

* * *

Q despises London sometimes. Sometimes, he spends entire afternoons staring blankly at pictures of the nicer places Bond gets to go. He spots: Sunny beaches. Colourful plants. Sweeter scents. Someone beautiful by Bond's side. It's all like a warm summer night, and it eats away at Q.

Q despises London sometimes. He tries to love it. He stares out of his window in a desperate attempt to justify. He spots: Crammed buildings. Heavy skies. Crowded Streets. Someone from his team had a nervous breakdown yesterday. It's all tinged with grey, and Q idly wonders why.

Q despises London sometimes. He doesn‘t want to be Bond. No one wants to be Bond. He doesn‘t want to leave London either. Sometimes he wants to be by Bond's side, wants sunny beaches and James‘ mischievous smiles.

Most days, something ugly in his chest just wants Bond to suffer through the deadening days with the rest of them.


	7. Terra Mortalis Est

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terra mortalis est is Latin for The earth is mortal :) Expressionism honestly is one of my favorite epochs, art and literature. Art because most of the paintings etc are honestly just so out there, regarding colour composition and perspective; literature because the main themes of the world ending, death, destruction and loss of the individual I and everything falling apart somehow feel eerily... familiar :')

Burning skies are crying arsenic tears  
Since innocence was ruthlessly murdered in her sleep  
like petals torn from gardenias and slaughtered sheep  
We are welcoming the end with joyful cheers

Unbearable heat as the river gurgles gleefully red  
The air in this city is laden with sweltering lead  
Up on the spire, beauty has ripped off her head  
God has left us humans, or maybe he's dead.

Like death, you roam these flooding streets  
Stalking the shadows, you might kill the sun  
You know god is dead, and on him you feast

This earth is fading with nowhere to run  
terra mortalis est, my heart barely beats  
but choking with you on my teeth is fun.

* * *

The man approaches Q in the wreckage of a city once known as London, and all he can think is that he is the most graceful thing left on earth, even if the flowers starting to spring up between grey chunks of cement and rusting steel die underneath his bare feet. He moves like a snake, and his shadow has wings that are missing on him. There's dried blood on his hands when he offers a handshake, and Q smiles and takes it anyway, even as cold blue seems to spread through his body. Someone once told him about Chaos wandering the world as a beautiful man, he thinks, but there are lips on pressed on his and ecstasy spreads through his body like icy wildfire and the world loses all meaning.


	8. Comfort

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of all the poems I've written for fest, this one is absolutely my favourite :) Although I wrote them in June, and now James making eggs has like, a new connotation to me. :/

On the breakfast table  
sits my cup next to your gun,  
And the cat chases the cable  
on the kitchen floor for fun.  
I drink tea while you make eggs  
and complain of aches in your legs.

We skip the papers and the news,  
we keep our bed in disarray,  
for now, the sky is shades of blues,  
and time was made for slow foreplay.  
In the eves, I‘ll laugh and pet the cat  
while you tell stories laying on your belly flat.

And maybe soon the phone will ring,  
then I won‘t hear from you in days —  
or I‘ll be stuck in endless office stays.  
But for now, it's the birds outside that sing:  
For now, we‘re cosy and it's quite your style  
when you serve us eggs and flash the cat a smile.

* * *

“I swear to god, if M calls me back in during the next week, I might actually retire“,

Bond's groan was muffled by their ridiculously soft pillows, and Q turned on his side to stroke a hand through his short blond hair and yawned:

“You would never, dear, don‘t flatter yourself.“

Bond leant into the touch, and hummed a low note. The first rays of sunshine in the early morning illuminated the room with soft light, and Cleopatra underneath the covers stretched out along his legs and purred.

“I could threaten him with my retirement.“

“Don‘t think that would really intimidate him, James. Sorry about that.“


	9. Brave New World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think modern and contemporary poetry has an unfairly bad reputation, just as abstract art has. Maybe people think it's all nonsense these days, or pretentious, or kitsch, but I think the greatest feat of this poetry is its clarity, the way it can express an experience in so few words with such empathy that you feel it in your bones. Poetry in the old days is hard to understand now because its language and topic are not our reality, and being hard to understand tends to make things fancy in some minds. 
> 
> ,,, anyway I'm rambling/ranting here's the last poem lmao. This one is for poetry day.

Once upon a while  
you just had to follow the train tracks when you were lost in the fog.  
the world was black and white,  
east and west,  
chocolate and vegetables.

Rude awakening:  
there's something between yes and no?  
#778899, #808080, #C0C0C0?  
chocolate lowers blood pressure,  
there's barely any iron in spinach.  
_“the west murders people!“ —_  
_“the east does that, too.“_  
what's the perfect option?  
who is telling the truth?

There are no train tracks.  
no perfect locations, no perfect solutions.  
train tracks are just iron that pretends  
to know where it leads —  
i'm disappointed. i‘m betrayed.  
you are young: you just sigh.  
disillusion? no, you always knew,  
and you say:

_“i‘m just as lost as you_  
_in this fog.“_

_“make it easy:_  
_I don‘t know how to deal with this brave new world.“_

_“Easy is a lie for an election campaign.“_

_“please don‘t say that.“_

_“but dear, I hope it's a comfort:_  
_maybe we need to be so lost_  
_to make a new way?“_

you walk through the fog holding my hand  
my heart aches  
?

* * *

Some days, Bond doesn't know what to believe anymore. Maybe it has always been this difficult to differentiate between right and wrong, but when he'd been young, they had taught him black vs. white, them vs. us in easy words: We are always right, and they are always wrong.

As the globe kept traveling around the sun in vague circles, Bond learned this: Nothing works that way, and it's terrifying. Because these days, everything is flooded with a hundred perspectives and studies that claim to be true, and everyone twists the narrative at their will. You cannot trust the news. Sometimes, you cannot even trust your very own government - rather, he learns: They should have never trusted it.

Q once, when Bond had told him about the fog he saw creeping along his mind's streets these days, had said:

_"The main difference between your generation and mine is that you had to find out that the government doesn't always act in your interest, and we always knew."_

Some days, a part of Bond heart aches for ease. Q reminds him that there is no space for them in the old cowardly world; that the confusion and struggle of this new brave world is the price they need to pay to create that space, and keeps him close as he learns to accept complex uncertainty.


End file.
